8/18 Letters to the editor

August 18, 2005

Sports drinks unsafe for young children
What are we doing to our children? They trust us to know what is good for them and what is dangerous. I have observed several mothers and fathers giving their infants and young children sports drinks like they were Kool-Aid.

I saw one mother pour some of her sports drink into the baby bottle for her less-than 6-month-old baby. Don’t these people realize they are giving their children sugared salt?

The sodium in these drinks is to replace the sodium you sweat out as you exercise, play sports, or work in the heat of the day. It keeps your electrolytes in balance.

So what does this excessive sodium and potassium do to young children who are not sweating? It throws their electrolytes off in a different direction and may even cause other problems.

I would please ask parents to check with their family doctors before allowing their children to drink these sports drinks. What happened to common sense?

One day I watched a family in a restaurant; their two children were a terror. They opened the salt and pepper and poured them out on the table so they could draw pictures in the mess. When they got their fries they squirted the catsup on the salt and pepper mess already on the table, to make their pictures more colorful.

Where were the parents during all this destruction? They were sitting at the table talking.

I am in favor of etiquette being taught, starting in preschool and going all the way through high school. We, as a society, need to step back and see what we are teaching our children about their health, safety and behavior.

Ardyth Elms
Clovis

Kirtland expansion makes little sense
What is the relationship between the closing of Cannon Air Force Base and the expansion of Kirtland?

How much sense does it make to increase traffic at an urban, congested airport versus increasing air traffic in an uncongested rural air space?

Believe me, citizens are not as dumb as certain people think we are. I don’t like being told that we are unpatriotic for opposing the closing of bases.

Who do you think uttered these words:

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

They are the words of Herman Goering, the former head of Nazi Germany’s armed forces.